Page 120 of Savior

My heart is thundering away, blocking out the rain that’s starting.

“Shit, get her ass!” he calls to someone else, and I don’t have time to look behind me. My nerves are frayed, building and tussling in my body like a war.

I use a fallen tree to heft up, jumping over it with a leap as I make off toward the cabin as fast as possible.

“Get her fucking ass! And don’t harm a hair on her head!”

The accent is New York, and he mentioned Barone. He’s here for me.

They found me.

Ardesia had been sure no one could find us here. But he underestimated his opponent, and now I’m trying to escape men trained for this exact purpose. Extract and kill.

I feel it like the darkest, hottest breath down the back of my neck as all the hairs stand on end.

I’m being hunted.

Stalked by the very man in the flashbacks I was letting wash over me as my guard fell only moments ago.

I’ve got to stop doing that.

Letting it down makes me weak. It makes me vulnerable.

“Here, pretty kitty!” a deep, resounding voice calls as I look around and slow down. I ran from the obvious trail and thought I was headed in the right direction, but now I don’t know.

I’m too unfocused to figure out where the cabin is in my panicking.

My eyes land on a makeshift camp just about a hundred yards to the right, and excitement thrums through my stomach.

Basecamp.

“Help!” I scream as I rush through the camp. “Help!”

I can’t understand why no one’s coming out of their tents. Nor why they didn’t react when I told them I was going for a run earlier. Luca told me the entire place was rigged with cameras and microphones.

Once I’m in the middle of camp, I stop.

Decimation lies on the ground all around me. Men with their throats split and mortal wounds lie dead or dying all over the place.

“What?!” I can’t figure out how this happened.

I’m alone in the woods with predators I hadn’t known had even stepped foot on the island.

And all the while, I was fucking Luca like everything was perfect.

While a monster hunted me.

“Come with me, little slut.” He approaches before me, and I back away slowly, trying to plan and think.

My back hits the hard lines of a chest covered in a Kevlar vest, and I whimper.

“Mm, now you’re caught. Like a mouse in a trap. What will you do now?”

“Die, I suppose…” Swirling on the man behind me, I grab his gun out of his holster and hold it to my head.

He smiles. “You won’t.”

I smile back, my hand shaking.

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